IBG Interview - 8 Questions With... Black It Out

A band with a musical connection never truly dies. Even after years apart, that pull of music is still there. Our new friends from Black It Out prove this with their new album Resurgence coming after a long hiatus.

We caught up with the band to get a deeper look into the story and the music.

First off, tell us the story behind the name Black It Out?

When we first started in 2005, we were called Scarlet’s Sonata. People had trouble with the spelling and apostrophe in our name, and two of the original members left the group, so we decided to change the name. The name was a line in the first song we started writing for Black It Out. We think that change occurred sometime in 2008 and oddly enough, that song didn’t get a studio release until our latest album, Resurgence.

How would you describe the band’s sound?

In Resurgence, we’d have to say it sounds like we took pop-punk and post-hardcore from 2003-2006, put them in a blender, garnished it with a few electronic instruments and hardcore breakdowns, and served it in a chilled glass of angst.

Which bands have been the biggest influence on Black It Out?

There have been so many influences since the Scarlet’s Sonata days. The list we’re about to give you is in no way an exhaustive list on our influences. It would be impossible for us to name them all. The list also keeps growing. In 2005, Shaun was influenced by Atreyu, AFI, and From Autumn to Ashes. Bryan has always been heavily influenced by Senses Fail, Metallica, and Funeral for a Friend. For Resurgence, we’d have to say it was influenced by Senses Fail, Speak the Truth Even if Your Voice Shakes, and Ice Nine Kills.

You guys went on quite the hiatus, what brought the band back together?

We’ve always been great friends throughout the years, and I guess we always knew it would happen eventually. We live about four hours from each other, and we’ve been moving around California for the last ten years. We would always talk about music, and the subject came up to get the band back together and start recording again. I think we were playing Wildland or Destiny or something like it. We were getting MLG pro headshots on the bad guys, and we said, “You know what? It’d be awesome if we spent this time recording music instead.” It took some time before anything happened, but Shaun wrote the basis for “Reflections” on New Year’s Eve going into 2018. He recorded a sample, showed it to Bryan and that was the catalyst to get the project rolling.

Your new album Resurgence is quite the comeback. Tell us about how that came together and the songwriting process?

Like the story with “Reflections,” we’d record our ideas and email them to each other. Right now, Shaun’s in the Central Valley and Bryan is in Orange County. We’d call each other and talk about how we’re going to refine the sound. Usually, it was Bryan complaining about how the song didn’t have enough X, or it had too much Y. So, we’d have to fix X and Y. We’d have to go back and forth like that for a while but finally finished with something we were proud of in the end.

In what ways do you try to connect with your audience?

We’re always game to talk to our audience. We are most active on Instagram right now. We’ll post on people’s pictures and tell them they look hot or rad. People seem to enjoy that. We also post a lot of stories and regular posts, so we interact with whoever comments on those. One fan wrote on our record company’s Instagram and said they liked the stickers. We told our record company to throw in some of our merch and send it out to them. That person seemed to appreciate that. We also gave out free codes to Resurgence. Whatever the social media site, we’ll always write back if we see it. We love interacting with our audience. So much so, we’re building up a mailing list. If anyone wants to connect with us, follow us on Instagram and join our mailing list.

Give us some advice to share with bands hoping to stay together for a long time?

It’s like we’re a married couple advising a long and happy marriage. Jokes aside, you need to start a band with people you like and respect. Those people need to like and respect you too. You can’t go into a band with the typically Rockstar attitude and expect it to work out. We’ve jammed with people living the Rockstar life without the Rockstar bank account. They’d come to recording sessions smelling like sex, stay up on a three-day meth binge, or get out of jail right before a show. That wasn’t fun. People also don’t like divas, jerks, and they typically don’t like drama. If they do like drama, then we suggest you find a new band. If you like drama, we suggest you get therapy.

But, honestly, you need to be able to meet in the middle on many topics, like how the band is going to sound. Also, you need to be okay with things not being perfect. What we mean by that, you think your performance while recording isn’t perfect. That’s your problem. You need to learn to be okay with a good performance. We’ve had issues with one of us thinking we could always do better when each take sounded the same. But, always keep your best performances. Bottom line, be cool, be chill, and be flexible.

What is next for Black it Out? (Hopefully not another hiatus)

I think Black It Out has hibernated enough. We plan on promoting Resurgence for a while and building up an online presence. We’ll be promoting the album through ads and music videos. We will also be interacting with our audience through social media. During all of that, we plan on writing new songs, evolving our sound, and recording new music. We hope to release some new singles in the future. So, be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our mailing list to find out what we’re doing.

Keep up with Black It Out and where they go next HERE.